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834 SOULS.
to the island : well, they will take them to the churchyard by
water anyhow; and in their tradition they in^ke
be performed no longer by ship, but through the air (as in the
case oTth^Furioiis~Host), andjby waggon. Closer investigation
must determine whether similar legends do not live in Normandy,
Flanders and Friesland. Here I am reminded once more of old
Helium and Hel-voet, pp. 315 n. 804.J J*ij
Procopius s account is re-affirmed by Tzetzes (to Lycoph. 1204)
in the 12th century; but long before that, Claudian at the be
ginning of the 5th (in Eufinum 1, 123133) haS heard of those
Gallic shores^s_a_trysti-ngr-pln.p,ft of flitting ghosts-:
Est locus, extremum qua pandit Gallia littus,
oceani praetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulixes
sanguine libato populum movisse silentem.
Illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum
flebilis auditur questus
: simulacra coloni
pallida, defunctasque vident migrare figuras ;
and not far from that region are Britain, the land of the Senones,
and the Ehine. This faint murmur of the fleeting shades is
much the same thing as the airy waggon of the Bretons. The
British bards make out that souls, to reach the underworld, must
aai1~nypv f^^pnnljr^fp.q.d fl/nd ^t ftagsf hn<fl.fifi, acrOSS the Vale of
death, into the sea on whose shore standsjjjpen the mouth of
heIFTaftyss r ~(see Suppl.). A North English song, that used to
6e sung at lykewakes, names the bridge of dread, no brader
than a thread, over which the soul has to pass in the under
world (J. Thorns Anecd. and trad. pp. 89. 90). The same
bridge is mentioned in the legend of Tundalus (Hahn s ed. pp.
49. 50) : the soul must drive a stolen cow over it. 3
The same meaning as in the voyage of souls over the gulf or
1 Owen s Diet. 2, 214. Villemarque 1, 135.
even Owain the hero
2 The narrow bridge is between purgatory and paradise,
had to cross it (Scott s Minstr. 2, 360-1). In striking harmony with it (as supra
p. 574) is a Mahom. tradition given in Sale s Koran (ed. 1801, introd. : 120) in
the middle of hell all souls must walk over a bridge thinner than a hair, sharper
than the edge of a sword, and bordered on both sides by thorns and prickly shrubs.
The Jews also speak of the hell-bridge narrow as a thread, but only unbelievers
have to cross it (Eisenmenger 2, 258) conf. Thorns ; p. 91. Ace. to Herbelot, the
Mahometans believe that before the judgment- day they shall pass over a redhot
iron rod, that spans a bottomless deep then the ; good works of each believer will
put themselves under his feet.